Voice of the people (letter).

Tenure Means Fairness For Teachers

CHICAGO — The bad news for those of us fighting to make Illinois public schools better places for learning is that an irrelevant issue, "teacher tenure," is experiencing a mild resurrection, most recently in the Tribune editorial of Feb. 12. Raising this issue at this time is likely to have little effect, except to slow down legislative proposals that would bring fairness to the way Illinois funds its public schools.

Luckily for the children of Illinois, most lawmakers seem to understand that changing the way public schools are funded is the only significant education issue before them. Those who forget this will be reminded in the weeks to come as more parents and teachers focus their energies on achieving fairness.

In an effort to get the focus back where it belongs, on fair school funding, let's inject some facts into the tenure discussion.

You suggest that tenure virtually "guarantees" employment for teachers. This, of course, is not true. What is commonly known as "teacher tenure" translates simply to "due process for teachers." Tenure provides protection against unfair and/or illegal practices by school officials. Tenure ensures that teachers won't be fired in order to give a teaching job to a school official's relative, or because the teacher's race or religion are different, or because a school official decides he or she doesn't "like" a particular teacher.

Under Illinois law, there are 10 reasons a teacher can be dismissed. Among them are: incompetence, cruelty, negligence and immorality. Tenure puts in place a fair dismissal procedure that guarantees that teachers will not be fired from their jobs without the chance to answer charges brought against them.

Your editorial neglected to mention that tenure is given to a teacher only following a minimum two-year probationary period (three years in Chicago public schools). All districts have the option of extending the probationary period to three years. Each teacher's performance is evaluated by administrators who are specially trained for this task by the State Board of Education.

Also worth noting is proof that the tenure system works. Very few school districts seek to extend the probationary period to three years. When school districts move to dismiss a teacher, they are upheld more than 70 percent of the time.

In short, tenure simply means school districts must document the reasons for dismissal. When procedure is followed, incompetent teachers can be, and in fact are, dismissed.

While we believe the only significant educational issue before lawmakers this session is fair funding for public schools, the injection of tenure into this discussion does serve an important educational purpose. It provides an example of how tangential issues seem to arise under the state capitol dome whenever serious and politically difficult business is supposed to be conducted.